Last week we discussed the decision of the bishops of Minnesota to send anti-gay-marriage DVDs to the state's four hundred thousand Catholics. The mailing--funded by an anonymous donor--included a six-minute video of Archbishop Nienstedt of St. Paul and Minneapolis and a twelve-minute video produced by the Knights of Columbus.Last Saturday, Fr. Michael Tegeder, pastor of St. Edward's Church in Bloomington, MN, registered his disagreement with that decision in a letter published by the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Noting that the premise of the Minnesota bishops' mailing and Nienstedt's message is that same-sex marriage poses a threat to traditional marriage, Tegeder argues that the bishops would do better to focus on a real threat to marriage: poverty.

What are the real threats to marriage? The Sept. 29 story Economy is Hitting Hearts and Wallets, about the effects of our current economy on marriage, said that being broke and unemployed is not conducive to matrimony, young Americans are finding. In 2009, the number of young adults (25-34) who have never tied the knot surpassed those who had married for the first time since data collection began more than a century ago.In every serious study, poverty is the top reason for marital breakdowns. It is very hard to make the case that a small percentage of the population who bond with members of their own sex and seek to live in a committed relationship could have anything but a positive effect on the general populations appreciation of stable, faithful, life-giving unions.

Tegeder concludes by pointing out the obvious: "The constitutional amendment is a very political issue. The impression is given that political funding is at work here." This is an issue Tegeder has written about before. In 2008, he published an op-ed in the Strib questioning the USCCB's costly anti-FOCA postcard campaign.Tom Roberts of NCR interviewed Tegeder, who has never hidden his disagreements with Nienstedt's leadership style.

Asked if he feared reprisal, he recalled that he'd already been threatened by the archbishop "with excommunication and interdict" for installing a cremation garden at the church. When he was called on the carpet, he said, he was able to produce documentation that showed his parish had complied with all of the diocesan and state regulations.(...)

"If he throws me out I can walk away from this with my head up I love ministry. I wake up at 5 every day and stay busy until midnight. I love it. I'm energized by the opportunities." But some things just need to be said, he remarked.

"This man is leading us in the wrong direction," on this issue, he said of Nienstedt. "We have to call it for what it is it's bullying behavior. It's not the work of Jesus Christ. It's not the work of Jesus Christ."